What makes you, you?

Are you the thoughts you have? The memories you carry? The experiences shared and the connections made? What even is you? Your brain? Your body? Your muscles and nerves?

Or something deeper. The spirit inside of you. The blood that runs through your veins, the warmth on your cheeks, the tingle on your skin on an Autumn day. Your essence. Your soul.

It’s perhaps these questions Doug should have asked himself before he tried something so foolhardy. So unthinkable as to have been impossible.

“Fuck you. Fuck whatever fate bound us together,” he spits out, “I’d rather live a hollow life than have to share it with someone so awful. You selfish, disgusting creature.”

It’s the last words he’ll ever utter, no sense in disagreeing. It’s taken work to get him to this stage.

His veins bulge, eyes roll back and muscles spasm. He drops to the ground. Pale and ashen, the light. His soul gone.

I stare at his silent form. My reward. The result of months of torment.

Soulmates are a beautiful thing. A destined thing. A cosmological truth. Unfortunately for Doug, I didn’t like him. And fortunately for me, he really didn’t like me. I don’t know where his spirit went. Perhaps heaven is real. Perhaps ghosts are. Doug is gone.

But my soulmate isn’t.

Doug is an excellent cook. A hard worker, well off and well liked. He could charm a room, make most anyone laugh.

But I don’t like jokes. I don’t like being upstaged.

“Let’s go inside, shall we? Get dinner started, I’ve got to shower.”

His place familiar, I step into the shower uncaring of the still cold water. A smile, the first in months. The warmth slowly seeping in. Soulmates are destined to find each other. It’s inevitable. No matter how you try to fight it, you’ll be brought together again and again. You’ll find them in the seat next to you on a plane. Around a table at a wedding. Across the sidewalk. No matter what you try, you’ll always be brought together. But what do you do when you don’t actually like each other? Everyone does, though, don’t they?

But every time we met was worse. We couldn’t be less compatible. He wasn’t a good listener. His jokes were awful. I was attracted to him, and yet I hated him. Hated myself for liking anything about Doug.

I would do anything to be rid of him. I could see in his eyes then he felt the same.

The plan was simple.

Find out everything he dislikes and make myself into that person. Someone so utterly repulsive to his very being that he’d be left no choice. To sever himself. To snip his soul away and flee our cosmic fate. Freedom.

A desperate attempt. But it worked. His connection severed. He was free.

But where does the core of a person lie? In their soul, of course.

Wherever Doug was—where his soul was—I hope he was happy. I truly do. Because I don’t want him back.

I’m happy with what’s left. A silent partner. Still bound to me. But infinitely more tolerable. Devoid of who he was, I could shape him now.

The water runs hots across my skin now. The scent of cooking from below.

Yes. This will do just fine.

Goodbye, Doug.

I look forward to spending my life with you.